


Out of the Woods

by regenderate



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: 11.5x05, Gen, Season 11.5, Series 11.5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-19 01:44:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22436521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regenderate/pseuds/regenderate
Summary: The fam goes to a far-off planet to experience its erratic seasons-- all four can pass in as little as a week. When they get there, though, they find out that a child is lost, people have been disappearing in the forest, and winter is on its way...
Comments: 29
Kudos: 40
Collections: Season 11.5





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Super excited to have gotten to work with a great group of people on the season 11.5 fan project! If you don't know what it is, this work should go all right on its own, but for the full experience you should really check out the season 11.5 tag and start with Project Schadenfreude by wreckageofstars.

A warm glow lights the inside of the Doctor’s blue box, casting soft amber light onto the fam.

“I want to go to the future,” Ryan says, leaning against one of the TARDIS’s orange crystals. “We haven’t done anything futuritic on Earth in ages.”

“We went just last week!” Graham protests. “We got chased by drones!”

“Fine, then," Ryan counters. “We haven’t done anything futuristic on Earth that hasn’t almost ended in us getting killed.”

“Oh, mate.” The Doctor grins out over the console controls. “That’s just what time travel is! It’s no fun if you don’t take risks.”

“Well,” Yaz says, "I want to go someplace completely new." She’s hovering over the Doctor’s shoulder, staring at the knobs and dials that make up the TARDIS console.

“You always say that,” Ryan grumbles, but it’s good-natured. 

“It’s always true,” Yaz retorts. “Anyway, Doctor, weren’t you talking about that one planet earlier? With the seasons or whatever it was?”

“Oh, yeah!” the Doctor exclaims. “Chordia.” She turns to Ryan and Graham. “It’s this planet, and it’s got such an unpredictable orbit around its sun that the seasons happen completely at random. It’s supposed to be brilliant.” She raises her eyebrows. “We could pop in. If we pick the right moment we might even get all four seasons at once. Plus, the people are really nice.”

“Human?” Graham asks. 

“Human, but after a while they’ve sort of forgotten Earth and all that. It's a whole new civilization.”

“Sounds interesting,” Ryan says. “I’m in.” 

“Interesting enough to give up on your dreams for the future?” Graham teases.

Ryan shrugs.

“Interesting enough to put them off for a bit.”

“Brilliant,” the Doctor says, already spinning around to the console. “Yaz, Graham, you in?”

“’Course,” Yaz said.

“All right, then,” Graham said. “Sounds nice. All the seasons, eh? I always feel like winter drags on a bit.”

“Not here,” the Doctor promises. “Well, hopefully not. It goes both ways, you know. Hang tight, everybody!” She twitches a few levers, spins a dial, and then nods to Yaz, who slams down the lever and pushes the TARDIS into flight. The engines start up with their whine, and the gang waits, looking at the central column with bated breath until the noise fades away, leaving the console room silent.

“Right, then,” the Doctor says, already halfway to the door. “Let’s get a shift on.” 

Ryan, Yaz, and Graham follows her out of the TARDIS. They emerge at the edge of a dense forest, hanging at the top of a ridge. Below them they saw a village, buildings scattered around a clearing. As they step out of the TARDIS, a red leaf falls from a tree onto Yaz’s shoulder, and she picks it off and holds it up.

“This is autumn, then?”

“Looks like it!” the Doctor agrees. “Brilliant. Love autumn. Great season. C’mon, gang, let’s go see what’s in that town.”

The group stumbles down a rocky trail towards the cluster of buildings. They’re just at the edge of the town, their feet finding a cobblestoned road, when they hear a cry from down the road.   
“Get them!”

It’s a thin, high-pitched voice. Once they hear it, the Doctor and her friends only have a moment to process a group of kids running at top speed before the kids bowl them right over, knocking them down to the rocks. 

“So much for a warm welcome,” Graham grumbles, pushing himself up to a sitting position. A kid rolls off his chest only to join another in pinning down his legs. “I’ll be feeling this for weeks, I will.” 

“We caught them!” yells a redhead holding down Yaz’s left arm. 

“Sorry,” the Doctor says, lifting a particularly small kid off her lap with all the care of someone handling a baby bird. “I think we’ve got a bit confused. We’re not from around here.”

“We know,” the redhead retorts, hands on her hips. “You’re not from around here, and you stole our friend.”

“We just got here, mate,” Ryan says. “Didn’t have time to steal anyone.” He’s nearly immobilized, one kid on each leg and another sitting on his chest. 

“Are there any grownups around?” Yaz asks, pulling her arm away from the redhead.

“Yeah,” the kid on Graham’s legs replies in what’s clearly her best “tough guy” voice. “And you’re going to meet them.”

“That’s fine, then,” Graham says. “Just be gentle with my knees, won’t you?”

The redhead looks at her companions. They exchange a few glances, and then the redhead turns her attention back to the fam. “We can let you go,” she decides, “but if we let you go, you have to promise not to run away.”

“’Course not,” Yaz says. She looks around. “Right?”

The others nod agreement. 

“All right, then. Come with us.”

The kid hops off Yaz, and Yaz gets up. The others follow suit, and then the gang is walking behind about ten children towards the center of the town.

After only a few minutes, they come upon a small crowd of people, clustered together at the edge of the town square. The minute someone notices the newcomers, they shout, “Strangers!” A few parents leap out of the crowd to scoop up their children, leaving Ryan, Yaz, Graham, and the Doctor standing together, staring into a sea of scared, shocked, and confused faces. They stare back, stymied, until finally a woman a little older than Yaz pushes her way to the front. 

“Where’s my daughter?” she cries, desperation in her eyes. 

“Sorry, mate,” Graham says with a sympathetic shrug. “We haven’t seen anything.”

The woman begins to advance on him, her eyes narrowed. Tear tracks stain her cheeks, diminishing the effect a little, but still, she practically snarls. “You—” 

The Doctor steps between her and Graham. “Hold on a second,” she says. “Before you do something you’re really going to regret to my friend. What’s going on here, exactly?”

“My daughter is gone,” the woman says. She seems almost stoic, her face set, her voice clear. “And you lot just showed up—”

“Excuse me, that was a total coincidence,” Ryan interrupts.

Yaz gives him a look. She steps forward.

“Where did you see your daughter last, ma’am?” 

The woman turns to Yaz. “Sorry?”

Yaz extends a hand. “Yasmin Khan. I’m a police officer where I come from. Trained in finding things when they’re lost.”

The woman stares at her. “You can help?”

“We all can,” Yaz says. She glances at the Doctor. “That’s what we do, isn’t it? Help people?”

“’Course it is,” the Doctor says. 

There’s something approaching hope in the woman’s eyes. 

“She was out playing with her friends,” she says, her speech dropping in volume, falling back into a normal rhythm. “They said Lilla ran into the forest, one of them dared her— if winter comes she’ll be dead for sure.”

“We’re going to do our best not to let that happen,” Graham says

“You can’t stop winter,” the woman says.

“We can find your daughter before it comes,” Yaz counters. “Don’t you think, Doctor?” 

“’Course we can.” The Doctor’s eyes are bright. “Right, then,” she says to her friends. “To the forest?”

“Hang on,” one of the other townspeople says, stepping forward. “You can’t go in there. People disappear in that forest.”

“Well, we’ll just have to be careful, then,” Yaz replies.

It takes a little more arguing, but soon enough the gang manages to convince the distressed mother and supportive townsfolk that they know what they’re doing. 

“Do we really, though?” Ryan asks as they hike back up the trail to the trees. “Know what we’re doing, I mean.”

“We manage without most of the time,” Yaz says, glancing back at him. “Anyway, we’ve got experience in this sort of thing.”

“You know, our luck can’t hold out forever,” Graham calls from the back of the group. “One of these times we’re going to get hurt.”

“Sorry, Graham, can’t hear you,” the Doctor calls back. 

Ryan rolls his eyes.

Finally, the four of them stand at the edge of the woods, staring at a break in the masses of tree trunks.

“Well, then,” the Doctor says. “This looks a bit like a trail.”

“Better hope we don’t disappear,” Graham says.

For a moment, they all stand still, looking at the gap between the trees, and then Ryan takes a tentative step forward. The others follow, leaves crunching beneath their feet.


	2. Chapter 2

They walk slowly through the woods, crisp fall air on their skin, leaves crunching beneath their feet. The Doctor leads the way, sonic gripped loosely in her right hand, with Yaz hanging at her elbow. Ryan and Graham follow a couple steps behind. There seems to be a trail, or at least, a large enough break in the trees for them to walk without having to push branches out of the way, and they follow it, going up and down hills, letting their path curve in on itself, then out, until they can’t tell where they are or where they’re headed.

“Lilla?” Yaz calls out once they’ve gotten in a ways, her voice soft. “Lilla, are you out here?”

“She’s got to be a bit deeper in,” Ryan says. “Off the trail, like.”

“Still,” Graham adds, “there’s no harm in trying.”

They keep walking. Yaz keeps calling out every thirty seconds or so, just in case, but no one answers. 

And then something happens, something akin to a split. 

* * *

Graham is trucking along behind the group, and then he isn’t. He’s still on the trail, putting one foot in front of another, but the others have faded right out of his line of sight.

“Ryan?” he calls. “This had better not be some kind of trick.” 

He reaches out his hand to where Ryan was a moment ago, but he just swipes at the air.

He stumbles forward and passes his hand through where Yaz should be, and then the Doctor. Nothing happens.

| 

Ryan is used to strange things happening with the Doctor. Still, he’s sort of gotten used to facing those strange things with his friends. And now his friends seem to have disappeared— Yaz, Graham, and the Doctor, have all faded away into nothingness.

“Hello?” he calls out. “Grandad? Yaz?”

There’s no answer.

“Well, guess they did say people disappear in here,” Ryan mutters.

| 

Yaz is in the middle of calling out to the mass of trees on her left when her voice dies in her throat. Something is wrong. She can’t feel the Doctor’s jacket brushing against her own. She looks around. When she sees empty space where she expects to see the Doctor, she jumps back in surprise. Casting her gaze wildly around, she realizes that she can’t see Ryan or Graham either.

“Doctor?” she yells. “Doctor? What’s going on?” 

There’s no answer.

Yaz looks around frantically. No one appears, no one responds— she is alone.

| 

The Doctor is stepping firmly ahead, her jaw set. It takes her a moment to realize that Yaz’s voice next to her has faded, and another moment to miss the presence of Yaz’s arm brushing against hers. She stops in her tracks and turns around, already taking in a breath to ask a question.

No one is there.

“Hello?” she calls. “Where’d you all go?” 

No answer.

“Fam?” she tries. “Are you there?”

No answer.

The Doctor raises her sonic.  
  
---|---|---|---  
  
* * *

With a sigh, Graham turns around. No point in getting lost in the woods without anybody else. He starts walking back along the trail, towards the edge of the forest.

| 

Ryan looks back. The trail is still there, although he can’t see the end of it from here.

Still, the path is there, clear as it has been this whole time.

He starts walking, one foot in front of the other. Every step feels like a bit of a risk, taking him further away from the last spot where he saw his friends, but closer to the spot where the TARDIS is parked, ready to take them all away at the drop of a hat.

As a game while he walks, he tries to decide whether any of the others have also turned around— he’s betting yes on Graham, no on the Doctor. Yaz is always a bit of a question mark, but Ryan suspects they’ve been traveling with the Doctor long enough that Yaz will do whatever she thinks the Doctor would do, and the Doctor will definitely be staying right where she is, probably poking around in the bushes and everything.

| 

Yaz blinks. She can’t see the Doctor. She turns around. She couldn’t see Ryan or Graham. She let herself panic for three seconds, and then she takes a deep breath and starts taking stock of her surroundings. On either side of her there are trees, packed densely together; ahead and behind the trail twists into the distance.

Well, her friends can’t have just disappeared. There has to be an explanation. Yaz approaches the trees on her left, peeking around trunks and behind rocks. She doesn’t find anything. She tries the other side— still nothing.   
  
---|---|---  
  
* * *

Graham and Ryan, all of a sudden, are occupying the same space. Ryan is a little ahead on the trail, and Graham slightly behind, so that when their existences coincide, Ryan doesn’t notice until Graham calls out to him:

“Ryan!” he shouts, running forward.

Ryan jumps. He turns around.

“Graham?” 

“You got me,” Graham says with a little wave. Ryan immediately launches himself forward and wraps Graham in a big hug.

“What happened back there?” he asks, letting Graham go. 

“If I knew that, I’d be the Doctor.” Graham glances back behind him. “Any idea where the others might’ve gone?”

“Probably investigating.” Ryan shrugs. “So, you heading back to the trailhead or what?”

But when he turns his head to look, Graham has disappeared again.

| 

Yaz is stomping through underbrush, poking at the dirt, when suddenly she stills.

The Doctor, a few meters away, is scanning the area with her sonic, and the noise has reached Yaz’s ears.

“Doctor?” Yaz calls, half-running, half-crashing through the bushes.

The sonic noise stops. 

“Yaz?” 

And then Yaz crashes right into the Doctor, sending them both onto the forest floor.

“Oi, Yaz!” 

“Sorry, Doctor,” Yaz says. She picks herself up and holds out a hand. The Doctor takes it, pulling herself to her feet. 

“Find anything?” Yaz asks. 

“We might not have much time,” the Doctor says, looking at the sonic. “Near as I can tell, we’re getting some localized dimensional tremors, which is bad news— something in this forest is destabilizing reality itself.”

“So, what, we’re being shifted into different dimensions?”

The Doctor nods. 

“And back again,” she adds. “A bit like a parallel universe, but not quite.”

“How’s that work?” Yaz asks.

“It’s not supposed to,” the Doctor says, her expression clouded. The sonic screwdriver buzzes in her hand. She swings it in front of her face for a reading. 

“We don’t have much time,” she adds, lowering the screwdriver. “Listen, Yaz, I’m going to go after whatever’s causing this. You have to go back. Keep to the trail. Find Ryan and Graham and tell them what’s going on.”

“Wait, Doctor, what are you going to do?”

But it’s too late— the Doctor has turned on her heel and walked right off the trail. Yaz sighs and turns back.  
  
---|---  
  
**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one was already really short and looks even shorter with all the formatting, rip... hopefully it works though!


	3. Chapter 3

The sun is slowly setting in the forest, shades of pink and orange filtering through the trees. 

* * *

Ryan and Graham have each been walking for the last hour or so. For the most part, it’s been a solitary journey for them both, but every so often they shift back together and have a few moments of conversation— mostly just short phrases to the effect of, “Good to know you’re alive,” and, “Same to you.”

Finally, they each, separately and together, reach the edge of the trail. 

* * *

Graham gets there first, keeping a steady pace. He sees something’s wrong the minute he rounds the last curve and sees that there’s something between him and the setting sun, but he keeps walking at the same pace anyway. As he gets closer to the end of the trail, he can see that a bush, at least four times as tall as he is, is responsible for blocking out the sun. Graham takes a moment to follow the hedge, but once it’s apparent that it follows the edge of the forest as far as he can see, he gives up and makes his way back to the end of the trail, where he clears away some leaves and sits down right on the ground. He reaches into his jacket and pulls out a cling-wrapped sandwich.

| 

Ryan has been trying to keep up with Graham, but he keeps falling behind, especially in the dying light— he keeps having to step over a log or duck under a hanging branch, and he nearly falls a couple of times. Still, he persists until he reaches the trail’s end and meets the sight of the hedge stretching up towards the sky.   
“Of course,” he mutters to himself. He walks the rest of the way to the hedge. He looks at it up close for a moment, and then he tries to push his shoulder into the dense greenery. He jumps back with a yelp— a branch has ripped his shirt and drawn blood in his upper arm. It’s only a scratch, but it’s enough to deter him from trying again, and he sits on the ground, inspecting the scratch.  
  
---|---  
  
“Ryan?” Graham asks. He’s heard the yelp, and now he looks over and sees Ryan on the ground. He hurries to his feet. “Ryan, are you all right?”

“Yeah, fine,” Ryan says, looking up at Graham. “Just a scratch.” He shows Graham his arm.

“Ouch,” Graham says. “Think you’ll need an amputation?”

He’s joking, and Ryan jokes back. “Not if we get out of here soon.”

“Now, I’m sure we’ll be out soon enough.”

Ryan shrugs.

“I dunno. Where’s the Doctor when you need her?”

“Probably running right into the middle of everything,” Graham replies with a shrug. He holds out the rest of his sandwich. “You hungry?”

“Not for cheese and pickle, thanks,” Ryan says.

“Oh, hang on a sec.” Graham rummages in his pocket. “The Doc made them bigger on the inside for me, see? I’m sure I’ve got something else in here.” After a moment, he comes away with an apple, which he passes to Ryan.

Ryan takes a bite. “Thanks.” 

They sit in silence for a moment, with no sound but the crunching of the apple. 

“How long until you disappear again, you think?” Ryan asks.

“No idea,” Graham says. 

“Yeah. Sounds about right.”

There’s another moment of silence, and then Ryan adds, “Do you trust her?”

“Who, the Doc?” 

“Yeah.” Ryan shrugs, staring out into the darkening forest. “I mean, we’re all the way out here, and she’s the only way we have to get back home.”

Graham is silent for a moment.

“I don’t know,” he finally says. “I don’t know that I agree with her methods all the time.”

“Yeah,” Ryan agrees.

There’s another moment of silence.

"I've been thinking about leaving," Ryan says. "Spend some more time with my dad."

Graham doesn't answer. When Ryan looks over, he's disappeared again.

* * *

Yaz is rushing through the woods, pushing branches out of the way and practically leaping over rocks and fallen trees. She finds the trail quickly, and then she strides back to the head. She gets there in record time, but meets the same hedge as Ryan and Graham. She doesn’t bother trying to investigate this time: instead, she paces back and forth, trying to balance her desperate need to do something with the fact that Ryan and Graham still have no idea what’s going on.

She paces for almost half an hour, and then she flops onto the forest floor and takes out her phone, opening a puzzle game to pass the time. 

* * *

“Yaz?”

Yaz shoots straight up into a sitting position. Ryan is standing above her, and by the look of it, he’s known she was there for at least a few seconds already. 

“Ryan!” she exclaims. “Don’t scare me like that!” 

She jumps to her feet and flings her arms around him in a hug. He hugs her back a little awkwardly, and then she feels something wet on her arm.

“Are you bleeding?”

Ryan shrugs.

“Just got a scratch. Tried to shoulder my way through that hedge.”

“Put pressure on it," Yaz says. "Anyway, I talked to the Doctor. she says we’re being shifted between different dimensions.”

“What, so I can’t see Graham because we’re in a totally different dimension?”

Yaz looks around. “Is Graham here?”

Ryan points to a spot on the ground.

“Last I saw him, anyway. Eating his cheese-and-pickle.” 

“I still can’t believe he eats that,” Yaz says, a look of disgust crossing her face. She shakes her head. “Sorry. We haven’t got time.” 

“Did the Doctor tell you anything else? Like what’s causing it or anything?”

“She just told me to come find you and tell you what was going on,” Yaz says.

“What, so that’s all we know?”

“I trust the Doctor.” Yaz takes a deep breath. “Listen, I’m going to go find her.”

Ryan jumps up. “You’re what?”

“I have to try and help,” Yaz says, already turning to leave. “She’s all alone out there. You know sometimes she needs one of us with her.”

Ryan rolls his eyes. “You mean you think she needs you.”

Yaz turns back towards him. “I didn’t say that! Could be any of us.”

“You can’t go back out there alone,” Ryan insists. “Yaz, it’s dangerous out there. We don’t even know what’s causing this whole dimension thing. And that kid went missing. And I’m pretty sure it’s getting colder.”

“It’s dangerous for her, too,” Yaz counters. “And colder and all that. And if there’s something in these woods, that just means we have to find it and get it to stop.”

“She’s not even human!” Ryan exclaims. “C’mon, Yaz, she probably has, like, nine lives or something.”

“Well, I reckon I’m better off actually trying to help than just sitting here and waiting for her to save me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing! Just that I’m going, and you can’t stop me!” Yaz lifts her chin, daring Ryan to keep arguing.

Ryan shrugs.

“Guess I can’t,” he says, an edge of bitterness in his voice. “You better keep yourself safe, though. I’m not explaining all this to your mum if you die.”

“Fair enough,” Yaz says, and she turns and walks off. Ryan watches her for a few moments, and then she disappears, leaving him in silence.

* * *

Ryan is still standing when Graham calls out to him.

“Something wrong?”

Ryan jumps and turns around.

“Sorry,” he says. “Yaz was here a moment ago. She’s going back after the Doctor.”

Graham shakes his head. “I worry about that one,” he says. 

“I tried to stop her,” Ryan says. “Apparently the Doctor told her we’re shifting in and out of different dimensions. I think she just came back here to tell us.”

“Suppose that makes sense,” Graham says. “The dimensions thing, I mean.”

“Yeah,” Ryan agrees. “I mean, it’s not the weirdest thing that’s happened to us.”

“What do you want to bet the Doctor told Yaz not to go after her?”

“Of course,” Ryan says. “She trusts the Doctor when it suits her, and then she goes swanning off.”

“She’s just trying to help.” Graham looks at Ryan. “Actually, I’m surprised you’re not with her. Lose your taste for adventure?”

Ryan opens his mouth to answer, but then he looks over and Graham isn't there. He closes his mouth and sits down, shaking his head.


	4. Chapter 4

The Doctor walks through the heart of the forest, ignoring the branches scratching at her jacket. Her sonic screwdriver is buzzing, casting an orange glow in front of her— the daylight has all but faded, and the sonic is the only reason she can see at all. The air has gotten a little colder, but the Doctor doesn’t seem to feel it. She just keeps stepping forward, following some kind of signal deeper and deeper into the forest.

| 

Yaz strides down the trail, scanning for landmarks. She stops a few minutes in to take out her phone and turn on its flashlight, and then she swings the beam to either side, trying to find the spot where she and the Doctor first left the trail. She stumbles more in the dark, and she stops more than a few times to double-check that a shrub or a rock is truly unfamiliar. She comes to a stop with her beam on a broken branch. Pulling her jacket closer around her with one hand, she takes a step off the trail, and then another.

| 

Ryan and Graham have each settled in for a night of waiting. They are mostly alone, but every so often they flicker into each other’s dimensions and share a few words, rehashing the same topics over and over again: worry for Yaz, worry for the Doctor. Graham raises a concern about what the Doctor might do if left to her own devices, and Ryan counters with the question of what will happen to Yaz if she goes off the trail and doesn’t find the Doctor. Neither of them, however, voices the possible answers to either of those questions— neither one dares. 

And so they share the night, and don’t, flickering in and out. Graham eventually produces a banana and a cookie for Ryan and a book complete with clip-on reading light for himself.   
  
---|---|---  
  
* * *

Finally, the Doctor, deep in the forest, pushes away two branches and finds herself in a clearing. Gesturing with her sonic, she sees that it’s a perfect circle of grass surrounded by trees, and more importantly, that there’s a figure at the center. 

She creeps closer.

The figure is small, squat, shadowy. But as the Doctor gets closer, the light shines on what turns out to be a creature, with bark-like skin and branch-like arms circling around a human child.

The child cries out when the light shines on her face— she’s barely visible, just her eyes and hair poking out, the rest of her surrounded by the creature.

“Hello, there,” the Doctor says, her voice almost kind. “I see you’ve got someone I’m looking for.” She waves her sonic. “And there’s definitely a signal coming from here. Dimensional displacement. Possibly biologically linked.”

The creature stares back at the Doctor with eyes set deep into gnarled sockets. A crack in its skin opens, and it speaks in a whispery voice: “You cannot have her. She has a purpose.”

“Oh yeah?” the Doctor asks. “What’s that?”

“I cannot tell the likes of you,” the creature hisses. 

“What’s wrong with me?” the Doctor asks, advancing. “I’m smart. I follow the news. Billions of years of news, no less. Majored in history at least six times. If you don’t tell me, I’ll find out. After I take this girl back to her family, of course.”

The creature tightens its grip on the girl, who starts yelling again.

“Come on,” the Doctor says, a dangerous tilt to her smile. “You don’t want to make me cross.”

“Oh, but I do,” the creature says. “So very cross.” 

The Doctor advances further. She kneels next to the creature, putting herself just at the child’s level.

“I’m going to get you out of here,” she says, as gently as she knows how. 

And then she straightens up a bit and looks right into the creature's eyes.

“And I’m going to get _you_ ,” she says, “ _out_ of here.”

“You can try,” the creature whispers.

The Doctor backs up.

“No,” she says. “I’ve sworn off violence. No guns, yeah? Got to try the nice way.” She smiles again, but it’s a dangerous smile. “Please give me that child.”

“She’s ours,” the creature hisses. “Not yours.”

“She’s not either of ours,” the Doctor replies. “She belongs to herself, and maybe a little bit to her mother, who’s absolutely distraught right now.” And then she pauses. Something has occurred to her. She steps closer. “And her mother said people disappear in this forest. How many have you taken?”

“Not enough,” the creature answers. Its arms are still tight around the child. 

“Where are they?”

“Gone.” The creature’s cut-open mouth slinks up into a smile. “Gone where you cannot find them.”

“Want to bet?” the Doctor asks. “Although you know, I’ve never been a betting man.” She frowns. “Woman. Sorry.” Springs back to a smile. “Anyway. I prefer certainty. So let me tell you something: I will find out where you’ve taken the others, and I will get them back. But first, I will take that girl and get her back to her mother, and you will not stand in my way.”

The creature is silent for a moment, its smile growing wider, and then all of a sudden a limb shoots out from the creature and cracked around the Doctor’s midsection, knocking her to the ground and dragging her flush against the creature, arms pinned to her sides, rough skin scraping her torso, inches away from the child. The Doctor’s eyes meet the child’s in the dim light of her still-pulsing sonic. For a moment, the Doctor’s expression is soft, reassuring, but then the creature’s grip on her tightens, and her jaw sets. She twists and twists her body until she’s wormed her arm out of its prison and her sonic is level with the creature’s head. The sound grows louder and louder until it echoes throughout the clearing. 

* * *

The Doctor presses the screwdriver against the creature’s head.

The creature screams.

* * *

Ryan is half-asleep when he hears the Doctor’s sonic, amplified a million times. 

| 

Graham has been reading his book for the last hour. When the noise reaches him, he looks up.

| 

Yaz is well and truly lost. She’s turned off the flashlight to save battery, but she keeps shining the light from the screen onto the ground in front of her just in case she recognizes it.

When she hears the sonic, she almost drops the phone.  
  
---|---|---  
  
Suddenly, Ryan and Graham are together again. Cries, almost human, are stretching through the forest. They exchange a look.


	5. Chapter 5

The creature goes slack, collapsing to the floor in a way that was surprisingly elastic for a tree-like being. The Doctor wastes no time in scooping up the child and holding her tight, whispering kindnesses into her ear: “You’re safe now,” and, “That thing can’t hurt you,” and, “Come on, now, let's go find your mum.” 

“Who’re you?” the child asks. She doesn't fight at all-- she only stares up at the Doctor, wide-eyed, her tiny body soft in the Doctor's arms.

“Just passing through," the Doctor says. "My friends and I heard you were missing, thought we'd have a go at a rescue."

"Friends?" 

"You'll meet them soon enough," the Doctor says. "Probably."

That's enough for the child, apparently, and she rests her head against the Doctor's shoulder.

Before the Doctor leaves, she shines her sonic on the ground one more time. The glint of a piece of metal hits her eye. She kicks aside fallen leaves and shifts the child’s weight, which allows her to pluck a little round device from the ground and slip it into her pocket with her free hand before she starts back.

She’s walking back to the trail, still using her sonic for light, when a figure bursts out of the bushes. The Doctor swings her sonic around, shielding the child as best she can, but it’s just Yaz, her hair falling out of place, dirt smudged on her shirt.

“Doctor!” she exclaims. “You’re safe! What happened? I heard—”

“Everything’s fine,” the Doctor says. “I found the thing that took the girl, and I got her back. You all right?”

“Fine,” Yaz says.

“Didn’t stick to the trail, did you?”

“I was trying to find you.”

The Doctor shrugs. “Well, can’t say it’s not what I would’ve done. You’ve got to be careful, though, Yaz.”

“I was careful!” Yaz protests. She nods at the child, who’s curled up against the Doctor’s chest. “Is she all right?”

“Seems fine to me,” the Doctor says, glancing down. "I think she's asleep."

"She's had a bit of a day."

"Honestly," the Doctor agrees. "I'll be glad when we get her back to her mum."

With that, she and Yaz emerge onto the trail, and they walk in silence for a bit. It’s not long, though, until they get to the trailhead. The giant hedge is gone, and Ryan and Graham are standing together, silhouettes in the gap between the trees. As Yaz and the Doctor approach, they turn.

“Yaz!” Ryan exclaims. “Doctor! You’re safe!”

“’Course we are,” the Doctor said. "Told you we'd be safe."

"Did you?" Ryan asks.

"I don't know," the Doctor admits. "Feels like I say it often enough."

“That poor mum’s going to be happy,” Graham says. “Hey, Doc, what happened in there?”

“Oh, I took care of it,” the Doctor says. “Was just a bit of technology, really. Got it in my pocket and all.”

“Didn’t sound good,” Ryan ventures.

“Well, it’s all sorted now,” the Doctor says. 

Ryan and Graham exchange a look, but neither one says anything.

“Back to the village, then?” Yaz asks.

“Back to the village!” the Doctor agrees. In her arms, the child stirs. 

Yaz uses the flashlight on her phone again to light the path back to the village. The Doctor struggles a little with the child in her arms, but in the end she and the fam and the child are all at the edge of the village. Together, they walk down the same road on which the gang of kids had accosted them— there are no kids this time.

“Guess they’ve all gone to bed,” Ryan says, but he turns out to be wrong— half the village seems to be sitting by street light in the main square, kids huddled with parents, everyone sitting, standing, all awake, holding vigil. They all look up when they see the gang, and once Yaz and Graham step out from in front of the Doctor, a murmur goes through the crowd.

Moments later, a door on the edge of the square opens and the worried mother comes running out, her hair flying behind her. 

“You saved her!” she yells. “My Lilla!”

“Mum!” the child exclaims. She reaches out her arms, and the Doctor hands her over as soon as the woman is within reaching distance. The mother’s arms tighten around her child, and the Doctor steps back.

“Thank you,” the mother says, looking at the fam with tears in her eyes. 

“Of course,” Yaz says.

“You all right?” Ryan asks. 

Music starts playing from somewhere— one of the villagers has brought out a fiddle and is celebrating the return of the child. A few others start to dance, and the mother sinks down onto a bench. Ryan sits next to her, trying to make sure she and her kid and all right.

“What was it?” Yaz asks the Doctor from the sidelines. 

“This creature in the middle of the forest was using a dimensional shift,” the Doctor says. “I got hold of it. Biologically linked to the creature’s brain waves. But it shouldn’t be possible.”

“You might want to check that,” Yaz says.

“My people used to be in charge of all that,” the Doctor says, not looking at Yaz, almost as if she were in a dream.

Yaz turns to fully face her.

“Your people?”

“My people,” the Doctor agrees. “But they’re— not doing that anymore.”

“Why not?” Yaz asks.

“Long story,” the Doctor says. “Just take it from me— parallel universes, alternate dimensions, none of it is accessible anymore. Not without a lot of risk. Can’t jump across unless something is seriously wrong.” She pauses. “Unfortunately.” 

“So what’s seriously wrong?” Yaz asks.

The Doctor shrugs.

“Don’t know. Suppose we’ll have to find out eventually.”

“Well, at least we did something good today,” Yaz says.

Graham, standing nearby, shakes his head, but no one sees.

And as the fiddle plays on and the townspeople dance, snow begins to fall. Winter has come, and everyone in the village is safe.

**Author's Note:**

> okay so yesterday's episode KILLED me and i cannot BELIEVE i have to follow it with my fairly straightforward "lost in the woods" story. on the other hand i'm going to make sure i tell a kickass "lost in the woods" story so hold onto your hats!


End file.
